they missed an opportunity to not raise tax rates. now president obama is ready to fall off the cliff to bring in more money for the government. joining us now is doug schoen. doug, i've got to ask you directly because you hear a lot of this off the cliff stuff. specifically what would happen? what would happen to the private sector? what would happen to the government if we go off the fiscal cliff? >> sure, well, it's anyone's guess, but i think we will see economic activity slow down, david. i think we're going to see with the certainty of tax rates raising on all of us, that people contract their economic activity and given the cbo estimate, if we go into a recession, i think it will be cataclysmic for the american economy. david: specifically with the government, i remember during the clinton years when we had that debt ceiling thing that we went off of and that the government shut down -- would we see a shutdown in certain government agencies if we go off the cliff? >> i'm not sure we're going to see a shutdown, but we will certa